


We were tight knit boys

by MercyBuckets



Category: Killjoys (TV)
Genre: Background D'avin/OMC, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, Childhood, Comfort Food, D'avin-centric, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-18
Updated: 2018-12-18
Packaged: 2019-09-14 11:59:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,806
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16912476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MercyBuckets/pseuds/MercyBuckets
Summary: D'av will take the bullet.





	We were tight knit boys

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pyrrhical (anoyo)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anoyo/gifts).



> So this didn't go the way I was expecting. It started as a 5+1 of times D'av had protected Johnny and one time Johnny protected him. It grew into a D'av-centric character study which I hope you enjoy. I also tried to incorporate some Christmas!fic at the end for you (or at least Christmas adjacent). I also tried to incorporate everything we knew from canon D'av and Johnny's childhood into this fic, though I'm sure I forget something. 
> 
> It was beta read at the very last minute by an IRL friend but any remaining errors are definitely on me and not not on Emma, who was a total rockstar.

_Look, that's what makes us a great team._

_You lead._

_I shoot._

_Johnny gives a shit._

_\- D'avin Jaqobis, 2x04_

_You know what they say about Team Awesome Force?_

_They say D’av will take the bullet,_

_John will fix what’s broken,_

_and Dutch will bring you home._

_\- Zeph, 4x09_

 

**J-Star Cluster, Tellen, Aurora | 1045 Month of Rain**

* * *

The first time Marris Jacobis hits Johnny— like really hits him— D’avin is eleven years old. Johnny is eight.

Mom is sick again, lethargic and distant, too ill to help Johnny draw his family tree and certainly too ill to make rain cake. She gets sick often around this time of year. D’avin’s teachers say it is the weather but the way they say it— with a pasted on frown and a knowing glint in their eyes— makes him think that it is actually something else entirely that gives his mother her “spells.” D’av has never made rain cake before but Johnny is already in trouble at school for being “difficult” and for daydreaming when he should pay attention. If Johnny doesn’t bring anything to the Rain celebration, his teacher will think that Johnny forgot and Johnny will get in even more trouble. Everyone has to bring rain cake to the celebration so that there will be a good harvest this year. So D’av is in the kitchen trying to bake instead of playing rimball at the pit with Arro.

 _It’s no wonder mom is too tired to make rain cake_ , D’avin thinks, trying to remember when he put the cake in to bake. Making rain cake is really complicated.

He is grinding the nuts to put on top when he hears a dull thud from the other room and Johnny begins to cry. D’av is tempted to wait until the nuts are finished to go check on his brother until Dad starts yelling. Then D’avin drops the heavy grindstone on the counter hard enough to leave a dent in his haste to get to the other room. Once Dad starts yelling, he doesn’t stop. Johnny always cries when he gets yelled at and that only makes Dad angrier.

“You think your project is more important than your mother?” he roars, barely muffled through the wall. “You stupid, Johnny-boy? Nothing to say for yourself?”

D’avin bursts into the room ready to distract him, but what he sees stops him short in the doorway. Dad is at the foot of the bed, yelling at the top of his lungs, face red. Mom is under the covers, facing away from him. The noise is so loud that she must be awake but she’s pretending to be asleep like D’avin does when Dad checks to see if he’s awake after his bedtime. Johnny is on the floor sobbing, but what catches D’avin’s eye is the red mark on his brother’s cheek. It wasn’t there when Johnny came home. Someone hit him. _Dad_ hit him.

D’avin has to clench his fists to keep from punching something, maybe Dad. “Go in the kitchen Johnny,” D’avin orders. Johnny hesitates. “Go!”

Johnny goes. D’avin squares his shoulders and faces Dad, who is still yelling.

“-- ungrateful brat!”

D’avin is honestly unsure whether that’s directed at Johnny or him. “Dad,” he tries.

Marris whirls on him. “Don’t you start with me, son.”

“Marris.” Anna Jaqobis’ voice is very soft.

“See, now you’ve woken your mother up,” he says. “They have no discipline, Anna.”

“Come now Marris,” she says steadily, her voice raspy. “Run along D’avin. I smell something burning.”

He flees.

 

 

**J-Star Cluster, Tellen, Aurora | Month of Stars 1048**

* * *

 D’avin rarely gets sick. Johnny gets whatever is going around the school every year and spends a few days in bed recovering but D’av can count on one hand the number of times he’s been sick enough to miss school. So when he gets pneumonia after jumping in the frozen lake to save that dumbass Randy Cain, he isn’t prepared for how awful his recovery is. He can barely walk from his bed to the toilet without losing his breath and being trapped at home with no escape wears on him.  

“I’ll come home right after. Please, Mom,” he says trying to keep his voice steady. The effect is promptly ruined when he has a coughing fit that has him hunched over with the force of it.

Mom raises an eyebrow and he suddenly has a lot of sympathy for all the time that she’s been stuck in bed herself. Who knew that laying in bed doing nothing was so hard?

“It’s too cold and damp and you know what the doctor said D’av,” she says reasonably. “You need to rebuild your immunity before you return to school, even for a half day.”

“Mom, please,” he begs. _I need to get out of this house_.

In the other room, Dad grunts. “He’s never gonna toughen up if you baby him, Anna.”

D’avin’s cheeks burn. “I’ll wear a hat, and a scarf— two scarves! Please, mom!”

She hums thoughtfully, “Okay, you can come with me to the Center.” Her eyes sparkle. “But only if you promise to wear two scarves.”

 

That’s how D’avin finds himself assisting at his mother’s weekly self-defense classes.

At first, she makes him sit on the sidelines, watching the women run through attacks and blocks as he struggles through all the school work he’s missed. When he can walk and even run without collapsing into a coughing fit. She lets him run in circles around the training hall. Then he’s allowed to lead warm-ups and finally, finally, she lets him really help.

“What if I hurt him?”

Hattie Blackwell is three years older than him and about 2 inches shorter.

“He’s tough darling,” says Anna. She nods at D’av— as if to say that she won’t put up with him overdoing it no matter what she’s saying to Hattie. “Pull your punches and he’ll be fine.”

“I’m pretty sure Johnny can hit harder than you Hattie,” he teases.

“I will kick your ass Jaqobis,” says Hattie. Then remembering that Anna is right there, she blushes. “No disrespect meant Miss Anna.”

Anna smiles. “You better, Hattie. I’m not teaching you to sit still and look pretty.”

 

 

**J-Star Cluster, Tellen, Aurora | Month of Seeds 1049**

* * *

The weather gets warmer and Anna Jaqobis gets weaker. By the time the snow is gone, D’avin is leading her self-defense classes while she shouts from the sidelines.

Money is tight and D’av knows it. When Johnny begs for extra credits to get a new watt sifter— whatever that is— for his science project, Mom just shakes her head and glances at dad tiredly. When Dad gets drunk and calls Johnny a “goddamn waste of resources,” D’avin steps in. Johnny never gets the watt sifter but he also doesn’t get any bruises, so D’avin considers it a win overall.

 

He doesn’t understand just how bad things are until Dad doesn’t come home. The first night, he almost doesn’t notice. Marris sometimes goes out drinking or to the races. The second night he hears his mom crying in the kitchen when he’s helping Johnny with his homework.

Any hope that Johnny might not have noticed vanishes when his brother puts down his tablet with wide eyes. “Why is mom crying?”

“Don’t know,” says D’avin. He wishes Johnny would just leave it but Johnny never knows when to let things be.

“Is she crying because Dad didn’t come home?”

“Maybe,” D’avin says. “You done with that paragraph yet?”

Johnny glares. “This is serious D’av. What if Dad doesn’t ever come home again?”

“Good riddance,” mutters D’avin.

Johnny gasps like Dad might appear in the doorway at any moment. “You can’t say that.”

“I just did.”

 

A week passes. It’s quiet. No yelling, no one shaking him until his teeth rattle or calling Johnny stupid. No one telling Mom that she doesn’t do enough around the house when she can barely get out of bed. Two weeks and still Dad doesn’t come back.

“D’av, D’av come look at this!”

Johnny sounds way too excited for 7 in the morning. “What is it?”

“Come see!”

Groaning D’avin drags himself out of bed to see what the big fuss is about. He finds his brother laying on his stomach in the dirt poking a thorny bush with a stick.

“This better not have been a trick to get me out of bed,” says D’avin. “Because I will kick your ass.”

Johnny glares. “Look”

D’avin peers in the direction his brother is pointing. “Is that a bird?”

Johnny nods solemnly. “He’s hurt.”

 _Oh shit_. “Johnny, you don’t know how to take care of a bird.”

“I can find out.”

D’avin gives him an unimpressed look.

“I can’t just leave him there D’av. I think his wing is broken or sprained or something. He could die.”

 _Johnny Jaqobis, savior of small animals_. D’avin groans. It’s way too early for this. “Do you even know what it eats?”

“Bugs, mostly. I’m going to make him a splint.”

“You know it might die anyway right? Are you gonna be able to handle that, Johnny?”

To his credit, his brother does seem to think about it. “I can’t do nothing D’av, that’s basically the same as being a bad guy.”

 _Captain Apex strikes again_. “I’m not feeding it.”

 

Miraculously the bird survives its first week in the Jaqobis household without too much trouble. It makes an awful racket when it wants to be fed and it takes Johnny two tries to splint the wing but it’s not as bad as D’av was expecting. Especially when he discovers that throwing a blanket over the bird’s little house makes it shut up.

“You’re gonna confuse him,” Johnny accuses. “How can we release him into the wild if he doesn’t know when it’s day or night?”

“Since it gets dark at night I think it’ll be fine,” says D’avin. “Unless you’re raising a really dumb bird.”

“Be nice to Cap!”

D’avin rolls his eyes. “I told you not to name it.”

“Was I just supposed to call him ‘bird’ all the time like you do?”

“Yes. He’s not staying Johnny. You shouldn’t get attached.”

 

The bird heals quicker than D’avin thought it— he would. By the end of the month, it’s flying around the house raising hell. When he gets tangled in the curtains, Mom smiles for the first time in weeks and tells them it’s time for the bird to go. They release him at dawn— Johnny wakes D’avin up at 4 am for the occasion— and D’avin pretends not to notice that Johnny is crying as they watch the bird fly away.

 

The next day, Rex Conley shows up demanding money.

“I don’t have it, Rex.”

D’avin can hear his mother as soon as he walks through the door. She sounds frail and scared. He doesn’t like it.

“You telling me Marris skipped town and left his girl high and dry? That don’t sound like the actions of a lawman to me.”

“There’s nothing here. I barely have enough to get food for the boys.”

“But you still got money for Morph?”

“If I could afford the good stuff do you think I’d be buying that back-alley poison?”

Mom’s voice is bitter. She begins to cough and D’avin decides that he’s heard enough.

“There a problem here?”

Rex spins, hand on his gun.

“No!” Mom screams grabbing his arm.

Rex shakes her off and raises his hand as if to slap her. D’avin closes the space between them in a single step.

“You hit my mom, we’re gonna have problems.”

“We already have problems Jaqobis,” says Rex. “Your daddy owes me 400 credits.”

D’avin chokes. _400_ _credits_! That’s more than Mom makes from her classes in a whole month. “We’ll have it by the end of the week.”

“You best be sure you do,” Rex says but he leaves without giving them any more trouble.

“You stupid sweet boy.” Suddenly, Mom is hugging him. D’avin clings to her. His hands are shaking. “Where do you think we’re gonna get that money?”

D’avin forces himself to stop and think. “How much do you have?” Mom frowns and he can tell that she doesn’t want to tell him any of this. “I’m already involved, Mom. Dad’s not here so I gotta step up.”

To his horror, she starts crying. “Oh, baby. I didn’t want this for you.” She takes a deep breath and then another. “We have 200 credits, for the electric. It’s due next week.”

D’avin is already thinking about how much fuel the generator has and what he can sell to make up the rest of the balance. “It’ll be okay Mom, promise.”

 

“What did you do with my special edition comic D’avin?”

Johnny slams the door so hard that the walls shake

D’avin is laying on his bed trying hard not to think about how long it has been since lunch. “Don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Cut the crap,” Johnny’s face is red. “You know I saved up for that one for months.”

D’avin knows that. Of course, he knows that. The comic is a collector’s edition. Johnny’s talked his ear off about it more times than he can count. It was also worth good money.

“Maybe if you were more careful with your things you wouldn’t have lost it,” he says.

The look that Johnny gives him is so betrayed that he almost gives in and tells his brother everything. But he can’t. Johnny is his responsibility. He’s the big brother and it’s his job to protect Johnny, from bruises and money problems.

“I hate you,” snaps Johnny.

“Whatever.”

 

**J-Star Cluster, Tellen, Aurora | Month of Floods 1049**

* * *

A week later, Marris Jaqobis returns without a word as if he had never walked out on them and what was once stifling becomes borderline unbearable. D’avin takes over his mother’s classes when she gets too ill to leave the bed for more than a few hours at a time. He lingers after school, playing rimball or helping in the garden. Any excuse not to go home.

 

The only times he willingly goes home is to cover for Johnny. Ever since Dad came back, things have gotten worse between them. Everything Johnny says is a smart comment and Mom is too tired to step in. D’avin begins to pick up bruises more often. At school, he blames them on self-defense and at self-defense, he blames them on sports.

“You expect me to believe the defender squeezed your arms until he left bruises?” Hattie is unimpressed by his story.

“Just leave it, Hattie,” he says wearily. “Please.”

“It ain’t right,” she mutters, but she drops it.

He’s oddly gratified by her defense of him. Everyone else seems too afraid of Dad to say anything.

 

He lives his life in an uneasy balance between anger and avoidance until he comes home from school late to find Johnny in his room, in the dark, sitting on the bed.

“What happened?” he demands.

“I had a fight with Dad.” Jonny won’t look at him, which is a bad sign.

“What did he do?” D’avin walks over towards his brother. His hands shake with the effort of keeping his temper under control.

“Don’t start shit with him D’av,” Johnny begs.

“I don’t ‘start shit’ with him.” D’avin turns the lights on and gasps. Johnny has an ugly bruise across his cheek and the bridge of his nose.

“Dad!”

“D’avin don’t,” Johnny scrambles off the bed.

“Too late,” says D’avin. “Dad!”

“What do think you’re yelling about, Boy?”

Dad has clearly been drinking. D’avin’s blood boils.

“You think you can come back here and hit Johnny? Why don’t you just leave again and never come back? We were better off with you gone!”

Johnny lets out a strangled whimper.

“You think you’re real tough don’t you.”

D’avin is so wrapped up in anger that he doesn’t see the punch. He reels back, his head hitting a shelf hard enough to make him see stars.

“D’av!” Johnny’s voice sounds far away.

Dad isn’t done. D’avin curls up instinctively as a steel-toed boot connects with his side, once, twice. Something cracks and he almost screams.

“Get up,” Marris snarls. “Are you a man or a baby?”

D’avin manages to push himself to his hands and knees before the pain in his side has him sweating and crying.

“Disgusting,” Marris spits. “You best man up son. That goes for you too Johnny-boy.”

In the midst of the pain, D’avin had almost forgotten that his brother was in the room. Johnny nods vigorously, eyes darting between them. After a long tense moment, Dad leaves and Johnny collapses to his knees next to D’avin.

“What were you thinking?” he demands. “Are you okay? Can you breathe?”

“I’m fine buddy,” D’avin lies. “Everything is fine.”

 

D’avin barely manages to get through the first half of the school day. Gemma eyes him suspiciously in mathematics and he has to lie and say that he has a headache. He needs to get in to see the nurse, Mrs. Shaw, so in athletics, he steps in front of a charging defender at the last minute and collapses in not entirely feigned pain.

“It must have been a hard hit to crack your ribs like this. Are you sure you don’t want to tell me anything D’avin?”

D’avin is sure. Mrs. Shaw’s husband Lloyd is a deputy.

“I already had a big bruise there, from self-defense yesterday,” he tells her as she runs a portable scanner over him.

“I thought the point of self-defense was not to get hit.”

D’avin scoffs. “The point of self-defense is to survive.”

 

When D’avin comes home, Dad is waiting for him.

“What do you want Dad?” he asks, praying for everything to be over quickly.

“School is almost done for the year.”

“Yeah.” He has no idea where this is going but he doesn’t like it.

“Grab your gear.” Dad gestures at a pack next to him.

“What?”

“You’re too soft D’avin. It’s your mother’s influence. But that stops now. It’s time you toughen up and become a man.”

 _You gonna beat it into me_? He wants to ask. He doesn’t. Even with a healing patch, his ribs still ache from the night before. “What are you talking about?”

“I said grab your gear, boy,” says Dad. “You’ll be a man by the end of the summer.”

 

Apparently ‘becoming a man,’ means sleeping in a dark cave, a very very dark cave. The first week, D’avin barely manages to sleep for more than a few hours at a time. His ribs ache and every noise is magnified. Who knows what’s lurking out there in the dark.

Every day, he drags himself back into town. People stare. He probably looks like shit, or— you know— like he’s living in a cave.

Johnny is terrified that D’avin is going to leave him and live in a cave forever.

“I’ll come with you tomorrow,” he says.

“Absolutely not,” says D’avin. “Who knows what dad would do.”

The threat of Dad is enough to keep Johnny at bay. Mom is harder but she doesn’t fight as hard as D’avin secretly wishes she would.

“What’s this I hear from your brother about you not living here anymore?”

“It’s nothing Mom, just Dad being Dad. It’s fine.”

She looks him up and down, eyes dull. He can’t tell if its the fever or the medication. “I love you D’avin.”

Tears prick in his eyes. “Love you too mom.”

 

The cave isn’t all bad. It’s hotter than hell and D’avin’s found more than one snake hiding in the cracks in the walls but it doesn’t have Dad, and he’s more dangerous than any snake. It’s also where he has his second kiss— his first barely counts because it was Lily Collins and it was a dare.

“So your dad is making you sleep in this cave?” Arro looks somewhere between skeptical and horrified. He’s the first person that D’avin’s told aside from Johnny.

“Yeah, he thinks I need to toughen up.”

“That’s fucked up man,” says Arro.

D’avin speaks without thinking. “Well, he also thinks that he can beat my ‘behavioral issues’ out of me, so ...”

Arro gasps. “He _does_ hit you.”

D’avin blanches. “Better me than Johnny. You can’t tell anyone.”

“That time when Sam sent you to the nurse, right before you left. That was your dad, right? I knew the hit wasn’t that hard.”

D’avin nods. “You can’t tell anyone, promise.”

Arro scoots closer. “D’av I ...”

“Promise.”

“I’ll promise if you promise to tell me if it gets too bad. This is really fucked up D’av.”

“I’ll tell you,” says D’avin hoarsely. They’re sitting very close together now.

“How many of your ‘accidents’ have been your dad?” Arro’s eyes light on a scar from when D’avin cut his forehead after Dad shoved him into the heavy wooden table in the kitchen. Arro reaches out, fingers barely brushing the scar.

D’avin kisses him. Then he realizes what he did and pulls back. “Sorry, _sorry_ , I— ”

Arro pulls him in and kisses him back. “What for?”

 

**J-Star Cluster, Tellen, Aurora | Month of Sand 1050**

* * *

By the time Dad allows D’avin to return home and sleep in his own bed, money is tighter than ever and Johnny just can’t seem to stay out of trouble. As horrible as the cave was, D’avin finds himself longing for the quiet more than he would have expected to.

 

D’avin is writing Arro a comm message when Johnny barges in without knocking.

“I think I screwed up D’av.”

He sounds close to tears in a way that D’avin hasn’t heard in a while.

“What’s wrong buddy?”

“I got the wrong thing, the guy tricked me. Now, mom’s sick and I can’t fix it.”

If there’s one thing that gets his brother worked up, it’s not being able to _fix_ it

“Slow down, explain it from the beginning.”

“Mom asked me to pick up the credits from Hattie on my way home from school yesterday but Hattie was short on the rent.”

D’avin gestures for him to go on.

“So I told her we could take half this week and half next.”

D’avin groans. Typical Johnny. Of course, this was Hattie they were talking about, D’avin probably wouldn’t have taken the money either. “Then what?”

“I saw Doc Sinclair and he said if we didn’t buy mom’s medicine today, he was selling it to someone else who’d pay more.”

 _That bastard_. “What did you tell him?”

“I said we didn’t have the money but we could get it soon. But Doc said that wasn’t good enough. He said he’d sell half for everything we had and that was his final offer.”

D’avin suddenly knew exactly where this was going. “So you agreed.”

“Mom needs her medicine D’av. What was I supposed to do?”

 _You weren’t supposed to be in that position at all_. “You did fine Johnny.”

“No I didn’t!” he bursts out. “This morning Mom was worse. Like she hadn’t had the medicine at all. It was the wrong thing. It’s my fault.”

“No it’s not, Buddy. Mom’s just sick. It’s not anything you did.” So much for messaging Arro. “Why don’t you run down to the junkyard and I’ll deal with Mom.”

“What about space rats?”

“There are no space rats. That’s just Dad being an asshole.”

Johnny looks skeptical. “Is Mom going to die?”

“Mom’s gonna be fine. Go find a Laurence reverser, or whatever.

“Laurence repulsor,” Johnny corrects, but he goes.

 

"Were you gonna tell me or were you just gonna put this all on Johnny's shoulders?" D'avin's angry but it’s hard to stay mad when his mother looks like she’s wasting away.

“You’re supposed to be at school late,” she says hoarsely.

“That’s next week,” he answers. “How bad is it going to get?”

“How bad is what—”

“Cut the crap Mom, the withdrawal. How bad is it going to get?”

She sighs and he can see that she’s trembling. “There’s Morph in a hole in the wall behind the bookshelf if I start seizing.”

D’avin’s not sure if the seizures or the hard drugs are scarier. “Is there enough to— to get you through?”

“I’ve done this before,” she says. “When your father was gone.”

 _When he ran away like a coward_. “I’ll help you next time. Just leave Johnny out of it Mom.”

“D’avin.” She reaches for him. He takes her hand. It’s cold and clammy.

“Love you,” he says quietly. “It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be fine.”

**J-Star Cluster, Tellen, Aurora | Month of Darkness 1052**

* * *

 

Anna’s health continues to decline until she can barely get out of bed for weeks on end. D’avin and Johnny split the housework between them. D’avin usually cooks. He’s not great at it— definitely not as good as Mom— but the food he makes is generally edible unlike Johnny’s. In exchange for not cooking, his brother tinkers with the machines to ensure that they have clean clothes for school and that the generator is always ready to go.

 

Dad spends less and less time at home and more and more time at the bar, making bets and getting smashed.

D’avin stops staying out late with his few remaining close friends —Arro, Gemma, Hattie, when she can get away from the store— when he comes home to find Johnny sitting on the bathroom floor, black and blue welts blooming across his back.

Johnny scrambles into D’av’s arms, heedless of the pain the movement must cause him.

“He said—” His brother is sobbing now. “If I spent less time fooling around with— if I spent less time fooling around with Jenny, I’d have better grades. But he called her— and I got mad. And then he—”

D’avin has heard enough to get the picture. “Fuck him, Johnny.”

The sleep in the same bed that night, like they’re little kids again.

 

It’s not the first time he patches his brother up that year and Johnny gets plenty of opportunities to return the favor. The worst is when Dad breaks D’avin’s arm. They can’t afford the doctor so he tries to muddle through without. By the time Mom realizes how bad the injury is in a rare moment of lucidity, they have to re-break it. Dad stands by and watches. D’avin doesn’t cry, even though he thinks cutting his arm off would hurt less. When Dad tells him how proud he is, D’avin almost punches the old man then and there.

 

In a rare stroke of luck, Marris Jaqobis is away on a hunting trip with Lloyd and Ham the weekend of D’avin’s eighteenth birthday.

“We’re having the biggest fucking party,” says Johnny who is fifteen and pissed off at the world and at Dad most of all.

“We are not having a party,” says D’avin. “We can’t afford to do anything fancy. Plus, Mom hasn’t been good. I don’t want to stress her out.”

“Come on D’av,” Johnny begs. “It’s your birthday.”

“Behave, Johnny,” he says. “I don’t want anything big.”

His brother nods unconvincingly.

“I’m serious.”

 

“Surprise!”

D’avin almost drops the box of fuel. The kitchen which had been empty and dark ten minutes ago is full of people.

“Guys,” he says when he gets over the shock. “I said not to do anything.”

“Did you think we were going to listen?” Arro’s eyes sparkle in the light.

“He really should have known better,” Gemma says.

Hattie nods. “He’s an idiot like that.”

“My boy.” Even Mom is there, holding a cake.

“Johnny, I know this was you.” D’avin puts the box of fuel down and scans the kitchen for his brother.

“Guilty,” Johnny doesn’t look particularly apologetic.

“Get over here buddy.” D’avin pulls his brother in for a hug. He blinks back tears which Johnny tactfully pretends not to notice.

“Love you D’av.”

“Love you too Johnny.”

 

D’avin holds onto that memory when things get hard. Dad comes back from his hunting trip in a state. Both deputies apparently brought home more than he did, a fact that D’avin learns with Dad’s boot in his ribs. Things go on in an unsteady equilibrium between them until the winter holiday and final grades day. 

 

It’s starting to get dark when D’avin comes home. His final grades are respectable, not great but okay. Johnny’s are bad. His brother failed reading and composition. Dad’s not going to like it.

“Where is your good for nothing brother.”

Dad sounds pissed.

D’avin takes a steadying breath. “Out. Where’s Mom?”

“Out.”

D’avin rounds the corner to see Dad, belt in hand. D’avin freezes, suddenly he’s so angry he can barely breathe.

“Put that down.”

Dad looks up, shocked. “What did you say, boy?”

D’avin steps towards his father. “I said, put that belt down.”

“Or what D’avin.” Dad whirls threateningly. “Are you gonna man up and make me?”

D’avin punches him.

Dad reels back shocked. “I didn’t think you had it in you.”

D’avin punches him again, he feels something give under his fist. It feels awful but it feels good too. “Put the fucking belt down.”

Marris grunts and D’avin punches him again and again. Then he stops. His father has blood all over his face. He has a black eye and his cheek is swollen to nearly twice the size. D’avin gasps, horrified with himself. What is he doing? _What_ is he _doing_?

Dad wheezes and throws an elbow into D’avin’s temple. The world spins and D’avin falls. His hands hurt where they hit the ground. Then, nothing.

 

D’avin wakes up in cuffs.

“Aggravated assault.”

D’avin jumps and his aching head protests the sudden movement. Dad has used a few healing patches. His nose is swollen but his cheek is back to normal. His eyes are bloodshot but D’avin can’t tell if it’s from injury or from intoxication.

“Aggravated assault of an officer of the law, 10 years in prison minimum if it goes to trial.”

Dad is talking and D’avin knows it’s bad, knows he should be paying attention but he can’t muster up the energy. His head hurts, his wrists hurt, he’s tired. It’s too much. “What do you want Dad?” he chokes out.

Dad ignores him. “You’ll be tried as an adult of course. They take injuries to officers very seriously. They’ll lock you up and throw away the key. You’ll never see your mother, or Johnny-Boy again.”

“What do you want Dad,” says D’avin, louder this time. His throat aches.

“The army or jail,” says Dad. “Those are your choices.”

It’s not even a choice. Tears prick in D’avin’s eyes. Johnny is gonna be pissed. “Army.”

 

**J-Star Cluster, Westerly, Old Town | Month of Blessings 1061**

* * *

 

D’avin lays awake in his bunk for hours replaying his conversation with Dutch before they left and his conversation with Johnny before they came back. It feels good to finally have everything out in the open but he can’t help but feel like he’s doing this all wrong. He’s sure he’s not cut out to be a dad no matter what anyone says but he’ll be damned if he lats this kid grown up like him and Johnny, or Trees forbid like Dutch.

He’s about to try sleeping again when he hears laughing from the common room. If he strains he can make out Dutch and his brother’s hushed voices and, someone else. He sits up.

“Do it again, Uncle Johnny!”

That’s Jaq. What is his kid doing up? He drags himself out of bed and into the hall.

“Look who decided to join us?” says Dutch before he opens the door in that way she does.

“D’av!” Johnny sounds thrilled. “Guess what holiday it is?”

“Dad! Uncle Johnny is teaching me about Blessing Day!”

“Or we could just tell you,” says Johnny but he’s smiling.”

“It’s all been very informative for me too,” says Dutch. She’s wearing some sort of red paper crown on her head. She notices him staring. “Jaq made it for me.”

D’avin tries to remember the last time he celebrated Blessing Day properly. Not since he and Johnny were kids. Blessing Day had been one of his favorite holidays as a kid but it fell in the middle of the coldest month of the year and as Mom got sicker, they had less and less money to spend on celebrations.

Johnny hummed and D’avin wondered if his brother was remembering the same times as he was.

“It’s not Blessing Day without a blessing cake,” he says even though he has no idea what day it actually is. He’s pretty sure that it’s at least the Month of Blessings but he’s long since stopped keeping Telen time. Plus the conversion to J-standard is a bitch.

Jaq, who loves all things edible, bounces to his feet. “What’s a blessing cake?”

Johnny gets to his feet too. “A cake to make your blessings plentiful in the coming year. You have to make enough for everyone who comes to your house. It’s bad luck if you run out.”

D’avin nods. “There’s blessing cake for the new year and rain cake for a good harvest. Both holidays are about sharing but in for blessing cake, you invite people to your home to eat. It looks like a branch, to represent the possibility for new growth.”

“I like cake a lot,” says Jaq because he has his priorities straight. 

“Must be a Jaqobis,” teases Dutch. “It’s a good thing we’re out here in space. No one to visit so more cake for us.”

Johnny frowns. “I can’t tell if that’s good luck or bad luck for the new year.”

“More cake is good luck,” says Jaq definitively. "And then we exchange presents!"

“John,” Lucy’s voice is tinny and loud. “I must alert you that something is burning in the kitchen.”

D’avin turns to Dutch. “You let him cook?”

She shrugs. “Not my thing. Besides I’ve never had blessing cake before.”

“Uncle Johnny can’t cook for sh— sugarplums,” D’avin tells his son.

“It’s okay Uncle Johnny,” Jaq says. “I can’t cook for shit either.”

D’avin groans and Dutch suppresses a laugh badly. Johnny doesn’t even bother to hide his.

“Language,” says D’avin without any heat. “Not only did you place us in mortal danger with your cooking, you had to teach my kid to swear too?”

“I’m not cooking,” says Johnny sullenly. “I’m just heating it up. I got one frozen from Elenee’s bakery at the bazaar.”

“And you could even do that without burning it,” teases D’avin clicking his tongue. “Come on Jaq, we better rescue Uncle Johnny’s cake. I smell something burning.”

“I’ll get it Dad!” Jaq takes off down the hall as Johnny gives D’avin the finger and Dutch laughs.

D’avin smiled and headed off to the kitchen after his son.


End file.
